Effects of the probiotic formulation SLAB51 in in vivo and in vitro Parkinson’s disease models

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder. The prevalence is 1.3%-1.5% for people above the age of 60 years in Europe (Hirsch et al., 2016). The number of individuals with PD will have doubled by the year 2030. Currently, there is no cure for PD, and the treatment is therefore symptomatic, and primarily involves dopaminergic medication (Bioinformatics Centre, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, J&K, India et al., 2018). Deep brain surgery is an alternative, but this is only available for a selected group of patients whose symptoms are dopamine responsive but experiencing debilitating response fluctuations (Malek, 2019). There is also a wide variety of non-pharmacological treatment options, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy (Bioinformatics Centre, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, J&K, India et al., 2018). The evidence to support these interventions is gradually growing, and treatment guidelines (partially based on evidence, partially on practical clinical experience) for some of these health care interventions have been developed. Integrating these different treatment options into a bundled multidisciplinary approach (along with pharmacological and surgical treatment) is considered to represent an optimal therapeutic strategy for this complex, multifaceted disease. Parkinson is characterized by motor and non-motor symptoms, including abnormalities in the gut function, which may appear before the motor sign. To date, there are treatments that can help relieve the PD-associated symptoms, but there is no cure to control the onset and progression of this disorder. Altered components of the gut could play a key role in gut-brain axis, which is a bidirectional system between the CNS and the enteric nervous system. Diet can alter the microbiota composition, affecting the gut-brain axis function. Gut microbiome restoration is able to counteract the PD progression and this effect could be exerted by probiotics (Bonfili et al., 2017; Jeong et al., 2015; Klingelhoefer and Reichmann, 2015). In order to identify potential neuroprotective approaches able to counteract or to be useful as coadjuvant, in this study the potential therapeutic effects of SLAB51 formulation in PD, both in vitro and in vivo Parkinson’s models, was investigated. Our findings indicate that this probiotic formulation can counteract the detrimental effect of 6-OHDA in vitro and in vivo models of PD. The results suggest that SLAB51 can be a promising candidate for the prevention or as adjuvant treatment for PD.